Independent participatory media for Iran

Iran’s former intelligence minister Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei says his ministry had been well aware that a “sedition” was coming but was caught off-guard by its depth.

In an interview with Khorasan Newspaper, Mohseni Ejei said that as intelligence minister he had reported on “how the enemy is trying to create a velvet or some kind of colour revolution.”

The Iranian establishment refers to the popular protests that followed the controversial re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “sedition” and accuses the reformists of conspiring to topple the government.

Mohseni Ejei added: “At the time, my reports drew the ridicule of some official who gave no credit to it.” He maintained that the “sedition” took root three years ago and maintained that different people joined the lines of opposition with different motivations.

The current prosecutor general went on to describe countermeasures taken by the ministry under his watch: the arrest of Kian Tajbakhsh, an Iranian sociologist and academic; the arrest of Haleh Esfanidiari, an Iranian-American researcher; and the surveillance of activities connected to the Soros Foundation.

Tajbakhsh and Esfanidiari were shown on Iranian national television three years ago making a number of “confessions” about their activities in a so-called “Velvet Revolution.” Their family members said those confessions were coerced and in no way true.

“At the time, the ministry of intelligence predicted such events after the elections but not at such depth and complexity!” Mohseni Ejei stated. “At this depth that a person such as Mousavi would come into the arena and stand against the truth and the clear law and what he has heard and seen for years! No, we didn’t suspect this!”

MriHosein Mousavi, a former prime minister of Iran, was considered one of the pillars of the Islamic Republic until he challenged the results of the 2009 presidential elections, in which he was chief opponent of the victorious Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Mohseni Ejei denied that there was any fraud in the 2009 elections.